


all I can taste is this moment (and all I can breathe is your life)

by Selemetis



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Just Bear With Me, after 2x17, between after they rescued cheryl and the cute choni moment at the school, mentions of nana rose the only gay ally on the show that matters, so okay an angst fest with feelings, sorta ptsd warning bc of the nunnery, toni takes care of cheryl in a way no one did before
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-28
Updated: 2018-04-28
Packaged: 2019-04-29 04:27:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14465010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Selemetis/pseuds/Selemetis
Summary: She is only focused on Toni's breathy voice repeating how she needs to run, how she needs to hold on and somehow, Cheryl listens to her. She listens to the voice that says she can hold on when she is at the bottom of the endless pit of pain. Because she wants to believe that she is not alone in that pit. Not anymore.//or, the aftermath of cheryl's rescue mission.





	all I can taste is this moment (and all I can breathe is your life)

**Author's Note:**

> hey there! so this is my first choni fic ever, i'm kinda excited. so madelaine petsch told on the Sweetwater Secrets that toni took her in after she rescued her from the sisters and i just couldn't resist the idea of toni taking care of cheryl, landing on her own clothes and all that!  
> the title is basically the goo goo dolls - iris. definitely a choni song. come on.

" _Come on, Cheryl, let's go."_  
Cheryl has been running for so long, or at least that's how she feels. Her lungs hurts now, the uncomfortable slip ons on her feet aren't actually for running away from where they came from. All she feels is the cold spring air slapping her cheeks, her hand in a strong grip and how her foots hurt. It's not a picnic, running from a bunch of crazy nuns.  
She is only focused on Toni's breathy voice repeating how she needs to run, how she needs to hold on and somehow, Cheryl listens to her. She listens to the voice that says she can hold on when she is at the bottom of the endless pit of pain. Because she wants to believe that she is not alone in that pit. Not anymore.  
"Toni, wait." she stops suddenly, making her company stumble a few steps. They both try to even their breathings.  
"Cheryl, wha--? Kevin and Veronica are at god knows where right know, we need to get to the safety before the nuns get to us."  
"I don't think they care." Cheryl whispers softly. She wants to fight the tears back at least for once. However she fails, like how she did before when she was with Toni. A part of her, even at that moment, wants to show Toni that Cheryl Blossom is a tough nut to crack, an Andromeda in all of these chains around her. Yet again, she somehow knows that she doesn't need to. This alone puts her at ease, calms the oh so frightened cells of her being and cracks a smile in the darkness.  
"But that's okay." she says. "That means they won't be looking for us anymore."  
"We cannot risk it until we arrive to the Southside. They won't touch us there, I promise. But until then, we should keep running, Cheryl, please."  
Cheryl wrinkles her nose as a habit of hearing the wrong side of the tracks.  
"What do you mean _Southside_ ?" she asks, as they keep up their pace.  
"Where else are we gonna go?" Toni retorts. There is resentment in her tone that Cheryl cannot unhear it.  
She didn't think that through, to be honest. She was running, only running, after a girl with with pink hair -- a knight in shining leather in all her glory. But _that_ does not matter now.

“I -- I don’t know.” she admits. “I just didn’t think we’d go there.”

“Huh,” Toni snorts and Cheryl catches the sarcasm in it. “Where did you think I live, Cheryl?”

Again, Cheryl didn’t think that through. She just assumed Toni lived… _Wow_ , she thinks, _I don’t know where she lives_.

“Not your fault though.” Toni interrupts her chain of thoughts almost in a telepathic way. “Even I don’t know where I live sometimes. It’s just… Southside is generally where I call home and we don’t have much options other than that.”

“Doesn’t matter.” Cheryl says abruptly. “As long as we are away from my wicked family, we are just fine.”

When they turn around a corner and Cheryl starts to recognize the roads and all that, Toni slows down her steps and squeezes her hand that Cheryl haven’t realized she was holding all that time. It gives her a sense of reassurance.

“They are not all bad, you know.” Toni finally speaks with a half smile on her face. “I believe your nana is one big badass.”

“ _What?_ ” Cheryl can’t help her laughter. “Nana Rose is a badass?”

“How do you think we’ve found you, Red?” she asks as she leads their way to the south side of the town.

“Nana helped you?”

“She actually called me. Long story short, if we could spot you on that hideous place, that’s on her. She’s a sweet weird lady, your nana. Like an old crow on that one.”

“She is half gypsy.” Cheryl mutters under her breath. “Where are we going, by the way?”

Toni takes turns and crosses roads, never letting Cheryl’s hand go. She points an old cabin over the Sunnyside Trailer Park. An old wooden cabinet, like the one in Hansel and Gratel but without all the deserts it offers on the surface.

“That’s my grandpa’s place.” she explains. “He’ll let us crush for… I don’t know, until we come up with a better choice, I guess?”

Cheryl stops walking and Toni stumbles once again.

“Isn’t he the one that Jones wrote an article about?” she almost whispers.

“Yeah, what about it?”

“I just…” She takes a deep breath. “Do you think he’d okay with giving a Blossom a place to crash? I mean I wouldn’t--”

Toni slowly smiles and caresses Cheryl’s cheek with the back of her hand, tugs a strand of red hair behind her ear.

“It’s okay, Cheryl. It’s not like he’ll kick us out.”

“Okay.” Cheryl nods, not quite believing at Toni’s words but wanting to. She watches her knocking on the unpolished wooden door, watching her talking to the old man she has seen before at the fair at when she decided to stand beside their cause. She swallows the rejection that she is so damn sure coming her way. She adjusts her posture despite her clothes and tired self when Toni steps aside to show who is their nightly guest.

Thomas Topaz eyes her from head to toe, Cheryl understands where Toni gets her attitude on that one. He folds his hands behind his back, tilts his head to the left and comes a step closer to see her clearly under the dim light of his front door.

“I know you.” he says and Cheryl doesn’t step back, gets herself ready to be vicious once again if she needs to be. “You are that girl on the northside who stood up with us against the Lodges at the fair.” Okay, maybe she didn’t see that coming.

“I --” she starts but is cut off by a wave of Mr. Topaz’s hand.

“Toni already told me the deal.” he grunts. “Get in, for god’s sake, or you’ll be freezed with these crap on you.”

Cheryl couldn’t agree more.

***

To be perfectly, objectively honest, it was the smallest place she has ever been in. It basically one broom closet that Mr. Topaz calls his bedroom and another closet that he refers as “Toni’s guest room or something like that.” The kitchen was right behind the living room and there was a small bathroom with a small shower that has a curtain _at least_ . Not that Cheryl cares at this point, though. She _would_ care under different circumstances but this is the only place that will have her without a question and she can’t help the feeling growing in her chest, something she doesn’t usually feels towards many people that is gratitude. It’s just… so much that she can’t help but feel anything other than that. She is just so tired.

“I thought you might wanna take a shower.” Toni comes back with a pair of dark purple towels. “Those are mine and you can find my shampoo and all in the bathroom. What do you say?”

There is hesitation in her voice that makes Cheryl look at her in the eyes for a second. As if she thinks Cheryl doesn’t appreciate all this, as if there could be a crack on Toni’s confidence armor because of her… It makes Cheryl want to kiss her. _Again_. And she will kiss her again. Maybe not now, but definitely somewhere in near future, yes she will. Because she knows that there are other things she feel right now, growing in her chest like a delicate flower and she knows it’s not just her. You wouldn’t save people from their gloomy ends just because you were bonded over a milkshake and sleepover.

“I’d love to, Toni.” she answers her question with a sigh and rises at her feet. She takes the towels from her, plants a kiss on her soft cheek and cracks a wider smile than before. “Thank you.”

Toni smiles back, lips pressed together -- a gesture that Cheryl now knows a sign of deeper affection than she shows.

“I’ll bring you some fresh clothes afterwards. Call me if you need anything and be careful with the door, it gets stuck sometimes.”

“Okay.” she whispers as she passes her and enters the tiny bathroom. It really is tiny and somewhat looks like it got hit by a hurricane. It doesn’t matter, she tells herself as she gets rid of the godawful clothes of the nunnery. It is still better than the options at hand. She cries a bit, as she takes off every piece of clothing. She leaves them where she took them off, doesn’t even care putting them aside. She can burn them later.

She gets under the shower, pulls the plastic curtain and spots Toni’s lavender shampoo and smiles at the scent. It gives her a familiar feeling that she have accustomed to recently. It puts her alert demons at ease and oh boy does she has many of them.

She washes her red locks carefully, wants to purify them even. She scrubs every surface of her body to cleanse it, free it from the awful nightmare she has lived in. She scrubs, scrubs, scrubs and scrubs until her white skin turns a bright red under hot water. It starts to get colder but Cheryl isn’t ready to leave it yet, _she is not clean enough, not good enough, not pure enough._

She almost falls on her knees, but manages to put a hand on the wall on her left as she slides down. She is not okay, this is not okay but not in the ways her mother has wanted her to believe for all those years. This is not okay. This feeling, this loneliness, this fear of falling apart is not okay. Cheryl is not okay but it’s because of all the wrong reasons. She doesn’t even know how to be okay from now on. No one have thought her that before.

She doesn’t realize she is sobbing hard and almost choking on her own tears until Toni comes to check up on her.

“Cheryl?” she stops in front of the white curtain but Cheryl can’t really see her silhouette behind the tears. “Cheryl are you okay? I am -- I am opening this. Okay?”

Cheryl doesn’t know why she hesitates now -- she didn’t have a problem with breaking into a nunnery earlier tonight. She wants to tell her it’s okay but she only manages to croak instead.

The curtain is flash open and Toni is right there with a worried look on her face. Cheryl barely can look her in the eyes -- now realizes her nakedness but she doesn’t bring herself to care. Toni kneels down next to her, under the running cold water and wraps her arms around Cheryl without even asking a damn question.

“I know nothing is okay.” she says instead, whispers behind Cheryl’s bright red locks. “It would be weird if it was. But you have to know that you are safe here with me. Is that okay?”

Cheryl just nods, her arm clutching the one that is wrapped around her and rests her arm on it.

“Let’s get you out of here.” She gets up and Cheryl immediately misses the security that is left with her. Toni turns the water off, gets out and gives Cheryl her towels, not exactly looking at her. In a totally different setting, Cheryl would definitely used her shyness against her but now she just… appreciates it so much. She follows Toni to her room, sits on her bed and it creaks under her weight.

“You can have my pjs.” she gives her a pair of dark grey short and t-shirt. “I don’t… usually stay here so I don’t have much but I’ll grab rest of my stuff that you can use first thing in the morning.” She leaves her to change and comes back with a long pj bottom that is way too oversize. Cheryl gives her a look from head to toe and raises an eyebrow. “What?” Toni actually chuckles. “They are grandpa’s. The ones I bought for him at Christmas and he never ever wears them. So why not putting them at a good use?”

“It looks cute though.” Cheryl smiles and pulls her knees to her chest, arms wrapping her legs.

Before Toni sits down next to her, she goes to her nightstand, opens its drawer and pulls out a record to put it on her pickup that is also on her nightstand. A lovely song starts to fill the room, one that Cheryl hasn’t heard before. Not quite a soft one but it has the most beautiful words, like the ones that Cheryl has read in the books that her mother of course disapproved.

“I didn’t know you liked old records.” she observes when Toni sits in front of her on the floor and leans her back against the bed. Cheryl starts to play with the pink strands of her damp hair.

“I didn’t.” Toni admits, “Grandpa said this belonged to my dad so I kinda had to use it. And there is this shop down the southside, it sells good records from movies.”

Cheryl wants to know what happened her parents and why she doesn’t actually live with her grandpa and also why she didn’t take her to where she actually lives but she doesn’t. She knows that Toni needs time for that, like Cheryl did before. She knows they are way too different people but she still understands her reserved attitude. She is too tired to ask anyways. So she slides down next to her, puts her head on Toni’s shoulder and closes her eyes. Lets herself to feel nothing but this moment, this safe and sound moment that Toni provides.

“Thank you.” she whispers and holds Toni’s hand on her lap, entwines their fingers. “Thank you, Toni.”

She can’t see Toni’s face but hears her swallow before she speaks. And when she does, her voice is a bit hoarse.

“We’re good.” she says only and Cheryl finally believes that she is not alone in her pit of pain. Not anymore.

So she when she feels Toni’s lips on her hair, she leaves a kiss of her own on Toni’s shoulder.

**Author's Note:**

> so what do you guys think? Please let me know, I'd love to hear what you all think about this fic. *insert "validate me" with cursive letter image here*
> 
> come find me on tumblr: newurleans


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